


Changelings

by Unabashedlykitty



Series: Scatterings [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Naruto
Genre: Fae & Fairies, Fae Magic, Family Fluff, Found Family, Gen, Kid Fic, OC - Harry Potter, Other, Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship, Some politics, how else do I tag this?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-04-19 16:52:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19136779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unabashedlykitty/pseuds/Unabashedlykitty
Summary: Orochimaru's mother was perhaps the most intelligent person he ever knew. She taught him the scientific method, how one should never underestimate the "powerless," and to always, always be careful what he wished for.Fairies have put a great deal of power on wishing, after all.Inspired by the observation that it wouldn't really take much at all to reinterpret Orochimaru in the context of fae folklore, with a sprinkling of Wizarding World for flavor.





	1. Found

**Author's Note:**

> This is also an excuse for me to research the real-life applications of herbal remedies and their efficacies in an environment where they were probably the most reliable source of healing outside of the local doctors' cabinets (which were opened exclusively for the rich and famous) or the nearest mercenary-military dictatorship.

_I was reputed to have been the most terrifying Potions Mistress of my time – which wasn't saying much, considering my predecessor (I did manage to get Snape's 'billowing robes' effect down pat, though, much to my personal pride). For a while, I managed to lose myself in work after the war, pleasing myself with fiddling around in my laboratory and causing more or less non-lethal explosions I could brag about to my sister's husband and her children on weekly dinners. I made it sound exciting on purpose; if even one of the next generation was corrupted to my way of life, occasional grease notwithstanding, my goals in life were fulfilled. For a while, it was as though I was living the perfect 'Happily Ever After' fairy tales liked to claim were true._

_Then it was found that my sister had more than a little UnSeelie in her blood, and she and her children were lynched by her own husband and neighbors under the influence of the new/old regime. There was barely enough left to perform the proper rites._

_...My grief was made palpable to them in its own time, the strength and experience I had kept to an edge as a reminder of the previous war put to full bear on those who had massacred my kin._

_After... was difficult. Very difficult. The DA saved me from that, I think, by telling me about what had been about outside of my life. I didn't give myself any more time to mope in the face of the project plopped into my lap; I couldn't, not if I wanted to create a ritual that breached worlds with little consequence. My fascination with the subject was its own reward: I slotted myself into the research crew without so much as a by-your-leave and used my Potioneer's knowledge to the benefit of the project. We came up with a way to track the signatures of magicals sent through the portal – it wouldn't do if they got disintegrated along the way, after all – and began with all our volunteers. The initial tests were a complete success. Everyone was alive and in possession of all the necessary faculties, so far as we could point out, anyway, and so the exodus began._

_The Spread. (Scoffs) I suppose I could come up with something better if I ever felt the inclination, considering the local sense of logic._

_...Despite the eagerness I publicly exhibited at the prospect of leaving my world behind, in my heart I had already begun to miss home. Though I ensured that someone (muggle, of course) would always be around to tend to my family's graves I would never be there to do so myself as was my right. My sister's spirit would be starved of visitors. But I neither did I want to die._

* * *

Humming idly to herself, an itinerant apothecary stopped and stretched her back. It was sunrise, but she had already been walking since dawn, as the distance to the next village was still quite a ways off. Checking on the charms set into her hat for hostile auras nearby, the humming continued as she sauntered on in an easy, ground-eating stride.

This new world was absolutely wonderful to Moirainn McTaggart. And not just because it was a lot more violent than the one she used to live in.

The Potions Mistress had landed in a world where war was as factual as breathing, where it seemed as though everyone and everything was out to get you if you somehow didn't live long enough to pop out the next generation. Women in this time were very much the bottom of the social food chain: good only for getting some more male soldiers in the world and not much else. The few who insisted on displaying their warrior's skills were vilified, praised and feared in equal measure.

But as one who made tools of death for a living, Moirainn, now renamed Eiri Hayabusa, thrived under the mantle of war. She set up as a wandering apothecary, trading the mildest potions for food or occasional lodging from city to city and town to town, all the while letting her conscience dictate when she pulled out the big guns.

Like last week. She had come across a pair of children who had looked too delirious and starved to last more than another night. Likely their village had been massacred, and they were the only survivors; refugees were yet another part of this sort of life. Making sure they wouldn't remember her, Eiri had given them liberal sips of Felix Felicis, as well as some Pepper-Up to freshen their energy levels. With luck, they would've been found by some kindhearted civilian or reached a friendly village by now. Such brief instances of Good-Samaritanism kept her roaming as much as the anonymity did; she never stayed in shinobi territories long enough to make a lasting impression, although she did linger sometimes to construct a reliable network of informants who kept her up to date on possible job postings, local gossip, and as much corroborated shinobi and samurai activity as possible. Eiri needed to avoid them like the plague; they were too paranoid for her tastes.

It also helped her build a reputation as a friendly sort, if a little naive despite her profession. What could they really expect out of a woman who didn't have enough self-discipline to keep to her own self-imposed rules of engagement?

Unfortunately, given the recent establishment and rapid expansion of 'hidden villages' sponsored by the all-powerful Daimyos of this dimension, she would eventually have no choice but to encounter them or risk suspicion. At some point, she would also have to invest in disguises, at least until certain people forgot that she looked particularly young or snake-like.

That, incidentally, was rather fascinating to her innate researcher and scientist. Did this only apply to practicing animagi? What traits within a traveller were likeliest to show? Did it depend on their power, bloodlines, or was it all random? How intensely would the traits show, and did it depend on the species? If it weren't for those pesky morals that every scientist had to start with, she'd have gotten more than a few test subjects all hooked up and ready by now. But tests needed laboratories, and laboratories needed a fixed location. Unless she was willing to cultivate a stash of bases all over the continent that she could get to whenever she pleased, that was simply going to be a pipe-dream.

Darned, stupid sensibilities.

It was likely that her thoughts would have continued on in this vein until she camped out for the night or reached yet another rural town, were it not for the fact that, unbeknownst to her, a battle in the First Great Shinobi War was on in this specific area. If the consecutive events were meant to have happened at much the same time, no one would be able to say.

Nonetheless, what happened was this: a kunoichi, wounded beyond reasonable belief of survival, leaped out of the trees and had the misfortune of crashing rather perfectly on the helpless apothecary. It sent them both tumbling into the woods on the other side, rolling into tree trunks and smashing Moirainn's wooden box-pack, symbol of traveling merchants everywhere in Japan, as well as this apparent locale.

The witch's first instinct was to check for an attack, useless though she might be compared to a ninja's lightning-fast reflexes, and then to sift through the wreckage as quickly as possible to aid the woman lying no more than a few feet from her and worryingly still.

* * *

She was undoubtedly a beauty, despite her state of disrepair, which probably contributed to some of her success if she had enough pragmatism to use it. But she was too badly hurt to take nothing less than a miracle by shinobi standards to heal, a miracle Eiri refused to provide for fear of notice.

So she took her child, squirming in its bundle but still thankfully quiet, and the apothecary cast a sleeping charm to guarantee her a few more hours of it; she’d need those hours to get herself as far away as possible. A few twitches of the wand replaced the bundle with a transfigured branch, obviously broken in such a manner as to keep people from questioning the babe’s death to any pursuers. Then a blitz of summoning and repair charms on the box-pack (because precautions taken years ago had left her working bottles charmed to be Unbreakable) as she shouldered it on and tramped through the forest back onto the road, forcing herself to maintain a smooth but still civilian-level gait and movement noise to dissuade any trackers from being too curious.

So far as they will ever know, a civilian stumbled onto the kunoichi’s body, possibly looted her if s/he hadn’t been so ‘terrified’, and then attempted to make themselves scarce by moving on their way. Unfortunately, this probably meant that she would have to seek shelter in one of the Hidden Villages after all. The road was no place for an inexperienced single mother, and depending on her choice, the protection she could expect from the ruling Kage as a matter of course would need to be taken into account.

* * *

“You are a very fussy baby,” Eiri muttered without venom into the squalling infant in her arms.

To be honest, she panicked a bit when she realized he wasn’t yet at the age to be weaned, but that was temporarily assuaged by the goat’s milk she had with some honey for a sweetener. She’d have to find some fennel and fenugreek on her way to the next village, but until then this had to do. Gently she shushed him and rubbed a bit more of the goat’s milk into his gums.

He was dark and pale, with faint purple shadows like bruising around his tender eyes, still a baby blue. Perhaps it was a bloodline or clan-inherited marking, but at least he looked similar enough to her own features for now that she could hold off on contemplating a blood adoption just yet. At the very least she had nodded to her Fey heritage by giving the dead woman a replacement to care for if she was well enough to have chosen to, however temporary, so according to rights in the Underground, she had laid claim on the child as her own.

The witch was still unsure of exactly how far the Fey’s pathways could reach and if she was close enough to get involved, but she had to at the very least hedge her bets.

Now all she needed were those herbs…

* * *

The gates of Konohagakure bustled in the mornings as out-of-town merchant caravans and minor sellers like herself went in to sell or buy with the locals in the marketplace. The shinobi gate guards did not have the time to look too closely at her forms before she was waved on, which was a small mercy.

Orochimaru – yes, yes, she named him after a legendary Japanese figure, so sue her! Anyhow, he was getting fussy and wanted his milk. With the long-suffering sigh that might have brought commiserating mothers out the woodwork were it audible, the apothecary stole away to a seemingly private wooded area so she could breastfeed him. Those commiserating mothers were likely to decry her as some sort of fallen woman for the sake of propriety then, she thought to herself snidely as her greedy son guzzled down his fill. She was getting rather experienced with the routine by now, rubbing his back gently to burp him as she peered at the bulletin for any possible job offers, even for newcomer civilians without recommendations or verifiable skill.

Surprisingly enough, ninja in the general technological level of feudal steelwork had modern protocols regarding immigration. A given individual had to apply for a working permit and a residential permit separately, Morgan knew why, then graduate to a citizenship application, which only came after one entered a certain financial bracket and lived a certain amount of months within the village full-time. The long lines and backlog made the wait almost torturous, as the bureaucracy ensured that only someone who really wanted to live in the Hidden Village would actually want to undergo the paperwork and repetitive background checks by the still-infantile Torture and Interrogation Department.

However, to encourage favorable individuals to live within the village walls, streamlining the process through interviews was indeed available for the one who had the wealth to pay. Interviewers, however, only took so many in a day before closing, so any clever immigrant had to pay for an interview slot and then find a way to set up some sort of appointment. The ones who figured it out were the kinds of people who could likely survive life in a shinobi village. Like an apothecary who had enough 'acquaintances' and 'friends' that she had almost the whole system at her end figured out before she even got to the village.

With her baby full and napping in her Indian-style sling with the extra folds wrapped around her waist, Eiri ambled over to the marketplace, eager to see what her new competition was offering that day. Vegetables, ranging from typical to crossbred 'specialties', were sold along the entrance with similarly ranged fruits. Food carts were strategically parked in front of rivaling restaurants or clothing stores, offering everything from dango to tempura in several different flavors. Other stalls featured charms, to tie at the waist or to dangle from an heirloom weapon of some sort. She was especially interested in one stand that sold hair pins and other ornaments, and busied herself with haggling over a set of kanzashi with the hilariously entertained old woman running it.

“I'm telling you girl, no more than 125 ryo for this set. What other establishment can tell you that they've sold genuine tortoiseshell this cheap?”

“The establishments that I've run into in the Land of Wind are cheaper, and I don't even know how or where they could get tortoise. 75!”

The lady in question put her hand to her chest in mock anger. “Such insult! 115!”

Eiri sardonically raised her eyebrows, “If you were insulted by that maneuver, then you must have been swindling the locals far too often. 80 ryo, take it or leave it.” The stall owner hem'd and haw'd over it for a few minutes, then relented when it seemed that the baby at her breast was starting to sniffle alarmingly.

She nodded respectfully at the young mother, saying softly, “Keep arguing like that around here, and you'll fit in just fine.” The witch smiled back.

Taking her purchases in hand, she cooed to the sleeping boy, “Thank you for helping Mommy get a good deal, Oro-chan. You'll get some additional cheese for dinner tonight, you'll like that, won't you?” The boy was starting to eat semi-solids in addition to still nursing, and had apparently taken a liking to the dairy product. Given that this was a Japanese analog world and society, dairy was going to be scarce and expensive, but at least she would not be lacking in grain and vegetables. If she had to, she could probably improvise some tofu out of dried soybeans or stop after making soy milk if she ever ran out before her boy weaned. While it may not get him the cheese he so loved, Orochimaru was already an adventurous child and would be enthusiastic about trying it. She and her son were still living in community housing, but once the interviews were over and done with, it should be an easy thing to get someplace nice to live in, and then the Potions Mistress could see about creating a proper home for her new family.

Ugh. Her sister would have been absolutely thrilled.

* * *

 

Herbs used: both fennel and fenugreek are natural herbal remedies to encourage breastmilk production, with fenugreek taking effect in as little as seven days. Please handwave the notion that she could lactate without side effects despite not having been pregnant, and just assume that breastfeeding works as well as it usually does in the best case scenario for both mother and child. Magic still works.


	2. Growing Up (A Little)

The Hayabusa family was weird, full stop.

Usually, that was a statement that could be noted and pushed aside by anyone who heard it, something that could be applied to any of the relocated shinobi clans in Konoha, and indeed it was at one time or another.

When that conclusion was reached separately by the civilians  _and_ the ninja? Things get interesting.

* * *

This is how it started: Eiri found herself and her three-year-old son settled down in a mid-sized, traditional home on a spacious lot with enough room for a greenhouse and an herb garden on the lawn after a year and a half of scrimping and saving after their investiture. Luckily, her profession expedited the process rather quickly; despite the fact that the Nara and Yamanaka clans held great interest in herbalism, it only extended to poisons and antidotes. Being an apothecary gave the young mother a more detailed and esoteric knowledge of plant life, and being a Potions Mistress on top of that made her skill-set almost unfair to her competitors.

She was very quickly drafted into an increasing roster of consultants for the hospital and, through them, the aforementioned clans. The most the Nara wanted help with were determining the proper uses (read: non-lethal or capable of implicating clan secrets) for the byproducts of their deer herds, so the witch worked more often with the Yamanaka, whose abilities she found comparable to branches of Legilimency.

Though Eiri was hearing requests from the… Aburame clan? On what sorts of gardens were good to foster particular insect colonies.

The young woman was apparently the only one willing to enter a developing compound filled with all varieties of killer insects, trusting in their keepers' ability to to control them. Go figure.

And like a proper working mother with a yearling, she would wrap Orochimaru up in a sling securely to her back, covering his head and face in case of pollen, and take him to work with her. It became a common sight to see her walking to or from the clan district with an honor guard and her baby swaddled on her back. The only thing the witch couldn't allow herself to do was go into the labs and experiment directly until her boy was able to be somewhat self-sufficient.

Naturally, Eiri was deeply fascinated with the constantly-developing strains and crossbreeds between all the poisonous plants in the Yamanaka greenhouses, often asking for cuttings of this or that relatively innocuous specimen to take home and study. She had managed to work out several excellent substitutes to common magical ingredients for the future production and experimentation of her potions long before she had entered the Hidden Village, but it was always nice to have something new to fiddle with.

Most of the Yamanaka she worked with tended, however, to be both parts bemused and disturbed. After all, it wasn't like every civilian woman took her baby with her when she went to work in a greenhouse full of poisons.

* * *

On the civilian side, she was perhaps a little more dramatic, and there was one particular incident that made local gossip swear to the existence of a "Hayabusa "Kekkei Gekai." The local ninja, more used to petty esoteric retaliations between each other, noted and chuckled away the event while it was happening.

It began like this: like many a civilian who could point towards records establishing their presence at the founding of the Village Hidden in the Leaves, Masaharu Takeda was perhaps possessing of a slightly overinflated sense of self-worth when it came to comparing his family to that of other, more recent immigrants. He grew up around, and married into, families who disdained the unkempt, mostly lower-class residents and newly-invested citizens for 'intruding', for all that they acknowledged that every single one was worthy of investiture due to detailed knowledge of the stringent immigration procedure. He was, nevertheless, part of that seemingly perpetually-extant group of people who would very much prefer to hoard all the benefits and begrudge giving even the most disgusting, menial jobs to uneducated hicks; especially if they came from outside the village.

Unlike most of his social circle, however, Masaharu was not the type to extend respect, if not amicability towards those who had done well, and thus proved themselves. He seemed to have only comprehended the thin surface of the middle-class sociopolitical strictures he was raised under.

Which probably contributed greatly to what happened to him when he decided to 'get to know' his most recent neighbor.

The middle-aged Takeda patriarch was rather infamously derided for his bull-headed idiocy within the neighborhood as well as a particularly indiscreet predilection for cheating on his wife with women who simply couldn't say no. The local watchmen who regularly checked on the area were always alerted when a newcomer caught Takeda's eye, especially when said newcomer was a young wife or single mother.

Eiri Hayabusa seemed to be the perfect victim for his harassment: a barely twenty-something civilian woman who was newly-come to the shinobi village with a very young son and no male relation in sight. First impressions by nosy housewives and grannies who welcomed her into the neighborhood as she shopped and took her son to the playground described her as a sweet, if somewhat distant woman who quite visibly loved her boy Orochimaru. There was gossip about the obviously missing father and the fact that she had to save up to be able to settle into their particular area.

So, true to form, Masaharu Takeda brought a homemade meal with him and knocked on the door to her house during the son's afternoon nap. The housewives and other disapproving witnesses saw him charm the poor young woman and enter her home.

And he didn't leave. For hours.

By evening, Eiri's neighbors had called on the local patrolmen, who knocked on the door to the Hayabusa residence. They were tense as they waited almost too long. However, before they could resolve to break in through a second-floor window, the door opened to the homeowner herself, not looking the worse for wear.

“Officer-san? Is there something I can help you with?” she inquired softly.

Takeru, as the senior-most police officer at the moment, cleared his throat. “Hayabusa-san, your neighbors reported that Takeda-san, a member of the community, has yet to come out of your house despite an inordinate amount of time spent in the residence. Is everything alright?”

The civilian perked up. The shinobi's eyes unnoticeably sharpened and his muscles bunched almost imperceptibly under his uniform; was she _that_ relieved at getting the man out of her house for a reason?

“Oh, I told that man it was quite late out, but he didn't seem to notice time passing at all. Do come in, we've been having tea and it's almost time for me to get dinner ready,” Eiri said, opening the door wider to allow both men inside. Behind her as she led them to the sitting room, the officers made a plan of action in micro-gestures and hand-signs, alarmed by the implications the woman made.

They might finally be able to nail him with something.

When the young mother opened the door and showed them her erstwhile guest sitting at the table with a cooling cup of tea – Lady Earl Grey, actually English tea in general seemed new and unusual – they were far too relieved that nothing nefarious had happened under their watch that it wasn't until the three men had exited the residence that they noticed the details of their charge's state.

Takeda's skin was unusually pale, but not clammy, and though his facial expression was somewhat genial, veiling irritation as was his usual wont, his eyes were dilated into pinpricks. The man didn't exhibit any signs of poisoning or otherwise anything resembling foul play, so the patrolmen concluded that Hayabusa-san was simply more subtly intimidating than they had gave her credit for, and remanded him to his wife once they reached his house. A basic explanation later, and they were off with the rest of their lives.

Neither man would think twice about the fact that Masaharu rather noticeably changed after the incident: he seemed afraid of being outside his home after sundown for about three months, outright refused to go near the Hayabusa residence's street, and had abruptly stopped his philandering. The neighborhood gossiped about it for a bit, then let the issue die quickly and moved on to other subjects, like how intelligent little Orochimaru was growing. Only three and he was able to articulate himself exceedingly well and asking questions about just everything!

How his poor mother managed to keep up with him, they'd never know.

* * *

Orochimaru grew up to be an intelligent, relentlessly curious boy.

It was never a strange trait in him; Mother* never gave the impression that the fact he stood and talked months ahead of schedule was unusual. She had simply let him develop at his own pace and provided the tools he needed to go further.

Whenever his mother brought something that he'd never seen before from her work in the Yamanaka greenhouses or from the basement where he was never allowed to go on pain of dessert deprivation (he was old enough to know when his mother meant it, and he wasn't about to risk his cheesecake), she could scarcely unwrap the cloths before he was babbling out questions and theories about every minute detail about it. Mother, being proud of both her job and her son's intelligence and willingness to ask questions, would then spend the entire time prepping for dinner answering them to the furthest extent of her knowledge and asking back how he would test his theories. The boy loved those discussions; he and Mother could debate for hours about how he could prove that this or that existed or that things worked _this_ way and not _that_ way.

“The only certainties in life,” she once said, “are death, taxes, and the fact that no one knows anything about everything. That is why you start learning as early and as fast as you can, and you keep going as long as you can.”

Far from being mentally stifled by encouraging this intensity to _know_ , Orochimaru's developing genius absolutely thrived under the attention and stimulation. Mother never held back on anything he asked her to teach him; if the boy asked, she would answer as though he were a miniature adult instead of a child. To encourage him to learn independently, she purposefully used the big technical words and left the dictionary within his reach so that he could look them up himself. Never once had the dark little boy asked her whether other families were like theirs. This was normal for him, and it must be so for everyone else.

Oh, he was sure that other families usually had fathers, Mother told him so, but he personally didn't see much use for them. Mother was good at cooking and cleaning and teaching him how to ask questions properly and how to play and knew all about plants and what they were good for. What could a father teach him?

When he went out to the playground, he found the children his age to be slow and stupid. No one seemed to care about differences in flax, hemp, and yucca linens; most actually didn't even know what any of those plants _were_.

“All the other kids are stupid,” he complained as soon as they got home. “I don't wanna go there anymore.”

“That's because most of them are civilians, darling,” Mother replied. “Civilians do not bother to teach or train their children very much until they go to school, which teaches them everything from writing and counting to how the world works.” And then she tapped him softly on the nose, making him stand very straight and still. Tapping his nose meant Mother wanted him to listen and remember. “School will teach you everything I have no or incomplete knowledge of, like politics and the minutiae of social interaction. Remember, society survives because it helps us survive. If humans didn't need to cooperate, we wouldn't form villages or countries.”

“Yes, Mother,” Orochimaru said, looking at his toes. Then he looked back up. “Can I go to school now?”

Mother laughed. Orochimaru loved hearing his mother laugh; it sounded like the bells ringing whenever she sang to him. It was a different language than what everyone else spoke, but it was a family secret language, spoken only between him and Mother. He was still learning the longer poems, but he was getting there.

“I don't think most schools will allow you in until you turn four,” she told him, making the little boy pout. “But I shall see what I can find.” He perked up again.

And that was how, at the tender age of three-and-three-quarters – that was very important – Orochimaru Hayabusa entered as a student into the Konohagakure Ninja Academy.

* * *

Two years on from that day, Eiri was waiting for her son to get home from his studies at the Academy.

He was growing up very well these days; it turned out that the Changeling worked better than she'd thought with a dead woman involved. When done properly, the exchange ceremony became the Fey equivalent to a Blood Adoption: Orochimaru was developing the faintest traces of an inner glow omnipresent in Fey-children, and his mental development went at that pace as well. The witch had no doubts that once he grew out of his baby fat, he would feature her inhuman angularity, and perhaps even some reptilian bits if his alternative form was as coldblooded as hers.

Being UnSeelie, she had thought nothing of sending him to a school specifically geared to produce hired killers. Depending on how strongly he took after his adopted blood, he would've headed for a more violent profession in the future anyhow. Heading it off this early would only be all to good when it came to curbing his instincts later on.

However, the apothecary had to be careful about instilling a firm sense of ethics into her son early as well. She always made sure to tackle topics the Academy introduced about death and murder in the same way she taught her son and continued to do: debate. Her boy eventually concluded that he was to keep 'Kill' on the table so long as it served both short-term and long-term benefits centered around protecting his mother's interests, which meant protecting the village's interests. As long as he could trace the reasoning that doing this/that would make the village happy, thus cascading down to something that made his mother happy, Orochimaru was willing to do it. Eiri rued the day when he would discover self-centeredness.

Being selfish simply meant that the boy wanted to keep his mother happy so that he could be happy. It was more than reasonable, all things considered.

And the Academy student was very happy indeed when he came home to find the apothecary whipping up a sumptuous feast, with a birthday cake he spied sitting on a rack to cool. Beside it were exactly five candles; Mother took his hints about his _proper_ age with an air of amused decorum as he had marched off to school.

The boy raced off to the bathroom to shower off the grime and sweat and change his clothes, making sure to put on something nice because, as his mother said, “Special occasions are meant to be treated as such, and the first sign that something is special is when you take the time to look special.” Eiri most certainly looked special on this day as well, wearing a beautiful midnight blue kimono strewn about with white iris petals on a blurry grey hill that he had only seen a few times when she was attending a formal function. Orochimaru felt pride and warmth swell in his chest; but of course he was that important, he was her son!

They took their time cutting a swathe through the dinner dishes, carrying an argument about how many ways one could describe suffocation that had been going on for the past three dinners. The mother had bright, proud eyes, the son was flush with enthusiasm and enjoyment.

He waited very patiently for the three minutes it took to get the cake positioned in front of him and the candles lit. Closing his eyes, Orochimaru made a wish and blew out the candles. Hearing his mother clapping, he opened them to see none still lit. That meant his wish would come true!

“So, can I possibly hear what wish you've made?” she asked as she cut the cake into pieces for him.

The boy thought about it, then nodded. It was going to come true anyway, so there wasn't going to be any harm telling her, he figured. “I wished that when I graduate, I don't get stuck in a team with this stupid kid named Jiraiya.”

Quirking a smile, Eiri chided him gently, “I thought I taught you a long time ago not to make wishes dependent on someone else's opinion? Maybe one of the instructors will think you will work well together in the future.”

Orochimaru twisted his face into a rictus of horror; oh, would that the fangirls saw this. “They wouldn't,” he almost begged.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *In this case, Orochimaru is using the formal 'okaa-san' to the more informal and distinctly more immature 'kaa-san'.


End file.
